Through our work in neonatal intensive care with the University of Toronto, we learned that by applying machine learning to the full data stream, we were able to diagnose some dangerous infections a full day before any symptoms were noticeable to a human being. How did we discover this? By detecting trends that appear normal!

Hadoop has become a sought-after commodity in the enterprise space over the past year. It is cost-effective, and it allows businesses to conduct analysis of larger data sets and on more information types than ever before, unlocking key information and insight. Hadoop couldn’t have arrived on the scene at a better time, since it is estimated that 2.5 quintillion bytes of data are now being created every day.

Hadoop’s complexity and the current lack of skills to support it are two problems that many enterprises face, however. The good news is that these challenges can be addressed with training options that are currently available. IBM now offers a Hadoop Fundamentals course, and BigDataUniversity.com offers hundreds of tutorials, videos and exercises on the basics of Hadoop and other topics such as stream computing, open source software development, and database management techniques.

Each year for the past 5 years, Vertical Systems Reseller (VSR) magazine publishes its annual Review and Outlook. You can see the details of my prediction in the 2012 Review and Outlook: Big Data solutions will expand into transaction usage in addition to analytics, which will enable real-time business intelligence and action.

Today IBM announced our intention to acquire Vivisimo, Inc., adding their technology to our big data platform and product portfolio. Why did we do this and what are the implications for our clients? See my discussion on IBM’s Smarter Computing blog.

For more information about the acquisition, see IBM’s press release or FAQ. For more information about how IBM is bringing big data to the enterprise, see our big data web site.

Want to follow the conversation as it happens? Or better, yet, participate? Try @IBMbigdata, @Vivisimo_Inc, #bigdata, and #ibmbigdata.

If you are attending Enterprise Data World (April 29 – May 3 in Atlanta, GA) on Wednesday, May 2nd, stop by the Big Panel on Big Data session. I will be on the panel with several other luminaries, during which we will be delving into the facts and fantasies surrounding big data. Join us to discover why big data is such a hot topic right now, the changes that are coming to enterprise data management, and the new skills you should acquire to ride this wave of opportunity.